I’ve been a “Charismatic” my entire life. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly. I’ve seen the awe-inspiring and the cringe-worthy. I’ve seen the real and the fake.

Today, I’m trying to sum up some of my observations, because I believe a healthy approach to supernatural healing is profoundly important for the future of the Church.

Let me open with a big fat clarification that many of my observations are cumulative generalizations based on a wide range of experiences. I am not attempting to judge the heart of specific individuals or ministries, and no, I am not subtly referring to ________ who you personally dislike.

Does that phrase sound familiar? Maybe you heard it after you got laid off from a job or after a family member passed away. Perhaps someone encouraged you with that idea during a very hard financial season. It’s easy to find solace in this ideology – that there is a God out there who is in utter control of the workings of your life, especially when you’re feeling a bit out of control.

But if we follow this line of thinking, it leads us to another question, “If God is exerting absolute control on the Earth, is He responsible for all the evil things happening as well? Is every abuse and violation also a part of His ‘Perfect Will’?”

If you grew up in the Evangelical church, or are otherwise familiar with mainstream Evangelical theology, you have probably heard this statement at one point or another.

It is plucked from the book of Habakkuk and often excluded from its context, typically with the goal of instilling in people a sense of distance from God – as if he is too good to even look at them.

“God is too holy to be around sinners,” they say.

The idea is that God’s holiness entails a powerful disgust and anger with humanity and a general inability to corrupt his pure eyes by even looking upon us, so vile are we! He must avoid us like the plague.

It’s as if God in his perfect Heaven hasn’t built up an immunity to a fallen world. He can’t even be around that stuff! It could contaminate or corrupt him! If you are God, you just can’t be around a fallen world!